


someone better

by iced_matchalatte



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon - Manga, Canon Compliant, First Love, Fluff and Angst, Haikyuu!! Manga Spoilers, M/M, Mutual Pining, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, kagehina soulmates, nggghhh the YEARNING
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-16 22:35:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28963992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iced_matchalatte/pseuds/iced_matchalatte
Summary: In the endless retellings of Kageyama Tobio and Hinata Shōyō’s story, no one ever marvels at the extraordinary luck of finding a rival, to begin with. Genius as Kageyama once was, it was his partner’s promise of defeat, ushered in by an insurmountable level of talent exemplified by a former senior of his that ultimately constituted the intricate web of relationships that molded his prodigiousness to monstrous ranks.And it was that very promise of finding someone better that Kageyama always regarded as the ultimatum.Three days before the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, Kageyama Tobio and Hinata Shōyō visit Karasuno High School.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio
Comments: 14
Kudos: 79





	someone better

**Author's Note:**

> contains references from the manga!!!! esp from chapters 397-402!
> 
> this is completely unreasonable and impossible but this is kagehina’s world . .. … . and i can’t stop crying about how they’re playing together again (yes i know it’s been months since the final chapter LMAO)... 
> 
> this is just kagehina being dumb and pining as usual except as Professional Athletes now aaaa hope u enjoy! :D

“Should I call you Tobio-kun from now on?” Hinata asks, stretching his upper body numbed from hours of travel in his seat on the 4 PM Japanese Railways Shinkansen trip from Tokyo to Sendai. 

Kageyama scoffs. _Shōyō_. He tries the syllables in his mind, feeling out the alien tumble of letters. In all their years knowing one another, Kageyama has never sought to call Hinata – Shōyō. Even as teammates on the National Team, he finds the sudden attempt at feigned closeness futile. 

“Should I call you _Shōyō_?” Kageyama retorts, mocking the absurdity of his proposal. Hinata’s face contorts into disgust, body shaking to mimic chills at how unnatural the sound of his first name rolls off Kaegeyama’s tongue. The two athletes shift their bodies in their assigned seats, eyes trailing the blur of Japanese countryside into a nebula of green. 

Kageyama couldn’t remember the last time he’d been home. Everything after high school is swept in a sea of indeterminable time. Sure, he could remember those Great Moments. Receiving his first Schweiden Adlers jersey. Moving into his first Tokyo apartment. His debut as a professional volleyball player. His first time playing at the 2016 Rio Olympics. Monumental moments punctuated by the newness of it all. As a setter, he grew adept to the fluidity life demanded of him. Constantly being put up against new players, unraveling new modes of communication, refining his own capacities to draw better, stronger performances from his teammates. He reveled in it all. 

But Kageyama Tobio was a creature of precision, order, and stability. He maneuvered the skill of adaptation on the court masterfully but in life, he would fare better when there were tangents to which he could calculate the outcomes from. Promises to be fulfilled. Goals to meet. Levels to scale. He wasn’t very much a creature of change. 

“Do you think Karasuno looks the same?” Kageyama trails off, eyes still on the landscapes of Miyagi coming into clearer view from the train’s window. Shades of pink dusted the scenery, cherry blossom season enveloping the terrain in its warm, familiar hues. 

“Of course! Why wouldn’t it?” Hinata answers as if it were the most obvious thing. Of course. Kageyama smiles reservedly for himself, mulling the thought over. After a decade of knowing one another, thematic truths seemed to rind the cyclical nature of their relationship. Kageyama often did ask himself: _Why should anything change?_

He looks over at Hinata, whose eyes trailed to the view before him. Orange hair glinting in the melting sun, mouth curled upward in a wide smile, brown eyes mirroring a microscopic snow globe of their hometown.

_**If you get really good, I promise you somebody who’s even better will come and find you.**_

He always did know certain truths for himself remained unchanged.  


* * *

“Idiots!” Coach Ukai guffaws, a hand clutching on his chest as his laugh propels him backward from his seat. The two Karasuno alumni scratch their heads sheepishly, awkwardly chuckling at the odd comfort of being scolded by their former coach.

Kageyama cranes his neck to look around the store. Sakanoshita Market looks exactly the same, he thinks. He feels relieved in this way, overwhelming nostalgia blooming in his chest. The fluorescent lighting, pork buns lined up in its glass display case, a kettle of tea boiling on the heater near the cashier. It all feels like a welcome sight, albeit not much different from any Lawson or 7-Eleven branch in Tokyo. The small store feels scaled-down, walls lower and narrower or maybe he’s just grown exponentially – in perspective and in height – Kageyama, usually a master of space and proportions on the court, only stares at the faint beige painted on the walls looking colder in the harsh light and thinks: he feels sixteen again. 

Coach Ukai rests his hand on his chin, an amused smile creeping on his face. He runs another hand through his pushed back hair, sighing at the scene splayed across him, reminiscent of another time. Another world. 

_What kind of idiots take an overnight trip to their hometown days before the Olympics?_

“Coach, please!” Hinata bows, his voice twists in a higher pitch to capture the desperation of his request. Coach Ukai is almost taken aback at how it echoes Hinata’s boyhood days, squeaking and hoarse from the natural volume with which Hinata responds to anything at all. He looks at his former Middle Blocker and Setter, now looming men in front of him as he stares from across the cashier table. Propping his feet down, Coach Ukai stands to his full height, mentally assessing how much taller the two have grown. 

Kageyama and Hinata’s eyes widen in recognition as Coach Ukai’s shuffles in his pockets, pulling out the keys to the Karasuno High School Gym. He holds the keys up high, swinging it around his ring finger, light reflecting against the dull metal. 

“You were never here.” Coach Ukai sternly warns as he passes the keys to Hinata. Kageyama and Hinata’s chests puff out, suddenly moved by the sight of the keys to their old gym. The two athletes bow in gratitude and let out a synchronous _“Thank you!”_ in response. Coach Ukai erupts into another hearty laugh. 

“Idiots! Don’t overwork yourselves!” their former coach calls out to the two teammates who were now shoving each other out of the store, undoubtedly egging each other on in some useless race back to their school across the hill. 

Coach Ukai watches their figures dissolve into the night, shaking his head to himself at the mirage of his students-now-turned-Olympic-athletes’ swift apparition. He feels his chest constrict in something that feels a lot like pride. 

_Lucky bastards,_ Coach Ukai thinks to himself. 

Timing and strands of fate – no, _choices_ – don’t often lead us towards greatness. That much, Ukai knows. The freak duo’s ubiquitous presence lingers over their small corner of the universe like myth, his new students in the Karasuno Boys Volleyball Club often turning to their seniors as tales of caution and models of excellence. People don’t always get it right though, when they tell their story. 

In the endless retellings of Kageyama Tobio and Hinata Shōyō’s story, no one ever marvels at the extraordinary luck of finding a rival to begin with. Genius as Kageyama once was, it was his partner’s promise of defeat, ushered in by an insurmountable level of talent exemplified by a former senior of his that ultimately constituted the intricate web of relationships that molded his prodigiousness to monstrous ranks. 

And it was that very promise of finding someone better that Kageyama always regarded as the ultimatum. 

Kageyama speeds up the upward incline of the hill leading to Karasuno High School, catching a glint of Hinata’s orange hair bristling in the moonlight. He grins to himself, hearing Hinata grunt as pushes his weight on the heel of his foot to propel himself further.

_**If you get really, really good, you’ll get to play lots more games.**_

  


* * *

“That’s 1,250 wins for me.” Hinata huffs, stabilizing his breath as he rests his hands on his knees.

“You had an early start.” Kageyama counters, replies operating like clockwork honed by years of bickering. He crouches down, squatting to find his breath and rest his hammering heart rate  


Hinata scowls at his partner, about to volley another half-hearted insult for the sake of it until they both look up at the building before them. 

The Karasuno High School Gym looks exactly as it was before. Sturdy, sensible, completely ordinary. The only surrounding light emanates from the weakly lit lamp posts and vending machines nearby. 

“I forgot how tiring it was to run up and down that hill everyday!” Hinata shouts, bending his torso backward with his hands resting on his lower back, breath visible in the cold March night. Even at the level of Olympic athletes, the two men find themselves marveling at how much energy they had back then to expend on one another. 

Kageyama stands and slowly walks up the steps towards the closed doors of their old training gym. The steel handle feels blisteringly cold as he tries to pry it open. Hinata walks up behind him, his warmth suddenly intolerable it leaves Kageyama still in his place. Hinata’s hand reaches for the door, briefly meeting Kageyama’s fingers wrapped around the handle leading to Kageyama abruptly taking a step back at the contact. 

Hinata pays no attention it seems, as Kageyama feels his slowing heart rate pick up again. _Maybe it was the altitude of Miyagi_ , he thinks, that’s all. The Opposite Hitter pushes the key into the slot, sliding open the double doors of the gym at once. Hinata inhales sharply as he leads the Setter in, marveling at the expanse of their old school gym.

Kageyama is gripped by a blazing recognition. He looks down at the wooden planks, purposefully digging his shoe in the flooring. Satisfied to hear the way his soles squeak into the wood, he looks up at the ceiling right as the overhead lights turn on. Barely even noticing how Hinata is now on the other side of the court, the raven-haired player sets his gym bag down on the sidelines. Hinata follows, replicating his actions as they both unzip their jackets to reveal their standard athletic wear they used for training back in Tokyo. 

“It used to seem so much bigger, huh, Kageyama?” Hinata pipes up, as if he could read the setter’s eyes that scanned their shared space. Kageyama only nods, almost feeling cloistered at the gaping difference in size between this old gym and the auditoriums he’d been training in for the past six years. 

“The flooring…” Kageyama mumbles, taken back to when he had been first invited to that All-Japan Youth Camp in Tokyo during his first year of high school. The elastic flooring (aside from Miya Atsumu and Hoshiumi Korai) had been the most unsettling part of the trip. 

Hinata only laughs, stretching his arms extensively on impulse. Both men assumed their stretching positions, carefully upholding their specially crafted work regimen as mandated by their athletic trainer Iwaizumi (who would not hesitate to punish his own star players should he find out they both went home for a night right before the fucking Olympics). 

Immediately springing up after finishing his last stretch, Hinata pulls out a volleyball from his gym bag.

“Let’s go, Kageyama!” 

A ball toss. A resounding _whoosh_ slices through the air as the ball makes contact with the hardwood flooring. A tall, tall net looms over the two rivals.

_**The best players get to play lots and lots of volleyball.**_

_  
_

* * *

“Nice receive. You can finally dig well after six years.” Kageyama mockingly calls out to Hinata from the other side of the net. Hinata only smirks, switching his position from an overhand dig to a set, swiftly tossing the ball high towards Kageyama as if to say – _You’ll never let that down, huh?_

Kageyama leaps up, spiking the high toss on the other side of the court with a painful _wham!_ that’s left opponents alarmed and in awe. A cheshire cat smile grows on his face. _He never misses an opportunity,_ he thinks to himself. 

The two players have been at it for a few hours. Wordlessly serving, receiving, tossing, spiking. Silent promises are thrown as the ball passes for a fraction of a second in the air, meeting an extended hand endlessly reminding the other that volleyball is a game where you have to connect. 

__

For the briefest of moments, the ball is suspended in the air, filching against the strain of gravity making it known that the only way through which contact is made possible is by faith in the other that volleys it forward. 

__

Hinata Shōyō and Kageyama Tobio have always known this. Compelled by an immutable fortitude that simultaneously challenges and ignites the other, they have always acknowledged that a good rivalry is rooted in faith and trust. Defeat after all, is rendered null when not matched up against excellence. They have always held each other out to such a truth. 

__

Drenched in sweat, Hinata motions for a time out with his hands and walks to the side of the court. Kageyama nods as he follows, both reaching for their water bottles in their bags. They slide down to sit on the floor, catching their breath and taking large gulps of their energy drinks. 

__

Now Kageyama really feels like he’s sixteen again. How many hours has he spent here practicing with Hinata after training? How many times has he argued with Tsukishima, been made fun of by Tanaka or gotten told off by Daichi in this very court? It takes his breath away sometimes, the sheer force by which life had swept him from. The last time he was in this court, Hinata had made another promise – _“See you later, Kageyama!”_

__

“I don’t think I’ve ever thanked you.” Hinata says after a long pause of silence, disrupting the vacuum of thoughts meddling in Kageyama’s head. His eyes are fixed on the lone volleyball to his left, knees slightly touching Kageyama’s folded beside his. 

__

Kageyama blinks, goosebumps crawling on his arm as he feels the heat of Hinata’s leg creep on his bare knee. 

__

“For what?” 

__

“For being my partner.” Hinata answers plainly. 

__

Kageyama turns his head to face Hinata whose eyes are already searching for his. Suddenly made aware of Hinata’s proximity, Kageyama feels his arm nudging against his shoulder. The heat radiating from Hinata felt as if flames were licking against his skin. Kageyama swore he felt every nerve in his body, skin prickling where his body met Hinata’s. 

__

“Let’s continue playing volleyball.” Kageyama says, leaving Hinata puzzled at his muddled answer. His eyes bore into Hinata’s amber ones, resisting the urge to flatten his creased eyebrows. 

__

“If we continue playing, continue getting better, we get to play lots and lots of volleyball.” Kageyama continues, head inching nearer Hinata in the slightest, foreheads almost touching.  


Hinata's breath hitches in his throat. 

__

“Then someone better will come find us.” Kageyama finishes, echoing his grandfather’s promise from years ago. He felt his palms twitch as they hung slack from his folded up knees, pinky nearing Hinata’s hand resting on the leg that met his. 

__

Hinata pulls back, erupting into his loud, bellowing laughter that bounces off the walls of the empty gymnasium. 

__

“Good thing we found each other years ago!” Hinata exclaims, flashing another unsparingly wide smile at his partner, the faintest tinge of pink tickling his cheeks. 

__

Kageyama feels his heart crack at the tenderness that sweeps over him. A blanket of quiet falls between them, unspoken promises tended to be their currency of care. 

__

_Lucky us,_ Kageyama thinks to himself. 

__

“You did fulfill your promise.” He says out loud, clearing his throat a bit, interrupting the thick of silence that enveloped them just a few moments before. Ominously, he feels as if he’s speaking to his grandfather as well. 

__

_Someone better did come and find me, Grandpa._

__

“Took me long enough.” Hinata answers with a shrug, mimicking Kageyama’s words to him during the infamous game through which their ten year promise was fulfilled. 

__

Kageyama chuckles softly at the memory, biting down a reserved smile. He looks down at his hands less than an inch away from Hinata’s, tentatively wrapping a pinky around his. Hinata feels his ears heat up, as he looks down at Kageyama’s pinky now brushing up and down his smaller one. Calloused fingers rub against his equally rough ones, hardened by years of rigid training. Hinata swears he’s never felt anything so gentle in his life. 

__

“Yeah, let’s keep this going.” Kageyama murmurs, shifting his body slightly to turn towards Hinata and encasing his hand in his.

__

“Took you long enough.” Hinata echoes as they both inch closer towards each other, never having seen the other so clearly, as they do under the cheap fluorescent lighting of the Karasuno High School Gym.

__

**Author's Note:**

> first kagehina fic because!!! imagine finding ur soulmate, rival, partner, best friend, teammate, husband at fifteen/fourteen years old????? pleathe i love them so much 😭❤️ ft. kageyama kazuyo for the unforgettable words!!!!!
> 
> thank u for reading!! feel free to let me know ur thoughts in the comments if you like :)


End file.
